


Fallen

by orphan_account



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Fallen Angels, Fallen Castiel, Human Castiel, M/M, Season/Series 09
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-17
Updated: 2013-07-17
Packaged: 2017-12-20 10:33:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/886225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post season 8 drabble. </p><p>It’s been a week since the angels fell. And already, people are moving on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fallen

The first day had, of course, been a mass of panic and hysteria.

The angels had plummeted to the earth with flaming wings and chilling cries and to make matters worse, they had retained most of their strength and power. They were angry and disorientated and powerful, and the people were curious and scared and relatively weak and it was not a good mix.

Like a flock of angry raptors startled from their nests, they were ruthlessly vicious, and there had been numerous deaths and injuries as people went too close with their flashing cameras and their wild screams. The military had answered, but even tanks and guns couldn't do much against the worldwide invasion of this deadly species. 

But on the second day they were gone. 

All of them, all at once; without warning and without trace. The only evidence of their brief time on earth are the small graters littering the earth like pockmarks. The cameras snapped in their presence have failed to capture anything more than blinding white light and the families of dead and injured victims are staying curiously tight-lipped as though their memories have been cleared or muddied.

At first, people had believed the strange beings were aliens. There were theories of the government rounding them up and locking them away for experimentation and other theories that they had simply become dissatisfied with earth and returned home to where they came from.

But seven days on and these tales are already descending into the fanciful land of myth and legend, whispered bedtime stories of the “world’s greatest encounter.” It was already more common, more acceptable, to believe that a freak storm of shooting stars had released a toxic hallucinogenic gas into the atmosphere: triggering fits of unnatural violent anger in some, and strange visions in others.

Only seven days on and people were already willfully forgetting rather than admitting there could be anything supernatural about the earth they lived in.

* * *

 

Dean isn't surprised at the general reaction. Eternally bemused, yes, but never surprised at the lengths people will go to in order to feign “normal”.

Like all the others in the hunting community, he’s been left stunned and confused at these recent events. And he’s worried there’s a more sinister explanation in the works.

They missed the one single day of angry angels blazing with heaven’s fury and only heard of the chaos the day after they’d vanished. Sam had been burning up with fever for a full day and night and only when the angels had left had the fever died down and Dean still doesn't know if it’s a coincidence or if it’s somehow connected. There are too many unanswered questions and it’s making his head spin.

But Sam has been getting better day by day and he’s even been helping Kevin with research into the phenomenon, calling up hunters all over the country and digging up any possible witnesses or leads.

Crowley has vanished and all the demons are keeping a much lower profile than usual. Dean would be grateful but the silence is ominous and speaks more of a calm before the storm than any kind of peace or defeat.

Nobody knows where the angels have gone – not even the demons – but their research so far points to them lurking in hiding underground, hatching plans and forming secret alliances with god-knows-what.

They’re trying to find out what the hell’s going on before it bites them in the ass, but so far, no luck.

* * *

 

With nothing else to go on, Dean has been spending the days and nights scanning fields and hedgerows, bars and back alleys, searching for just one angel in particular. He’s half hoping to find some sign of something and half hoping he doesn’t – afraid of the image of a lifeless form lying crippled in the dirt.

Tonight is cold, with the vague threat of rain on the horizon, and Dean has the heater in the Impala turned on full as he drives around. 

The radio is on but it’s not tuned into music as usual. He’s tapped into the local cop radio in the hopes of hearing something, anything at all, but the supernatural sightings have dwindled into nothing and he’s beginning to fear that if Cas fell along with the others, that he also disappeared along with the others.

He has no reason to believe Cas is on earth, that he’s alive, that he even wants to be found. But there’s something in his gut that won’t let him stop looking; an itch under his skin that threatens to engulf him when he tries to sit still.

He spots a man in a pale trench coat walking along the street and he skids the car to a halt and runs out only to have a stranger’s face stare back at him in confusion. He barely stops long enough to apologise before he’s on his way.

He parks the car in a well-lit street and walks a few blocks back to the seedy part of town where he spots a guy with dark hair being beaten up in an alley by a small gang and his heart lurches. He shows his gun and the gang scrams but the grateful man bleeding on the ground isn't the one he’s looking for.

Everywhere he scans for clues; for piercing blue eyes, a mop of dark hair, a flash of tan trench coat, but everywhere he sees only the faces of strangers staring back at him. He feels like he’s chasing a ghost, a splinter of memory fading into the dark.

Eventually he finds himself stopping in a late-night café ordering a cup of black coffee to perk himself up. He remembers Cas at the bunker not long ago talking of his growing fondness for coffee and he looks around suddenly, exhaustion letting him stupidly believe that maybe Cas will have come to this café on this night for a cup of the damned stuff.

He almost laughs at his desperation but he’s too tired.

* * *

 

It’s around midnight by the time he’s driving back to the bunker.

Sam and Kevin are still sat the table with their computers and books and maps sprawled out in front of them.

Sam raises his head the moment he sees Dean. “Anything?”

“Nothing.” Dean walks to the kitchen and pours himself a glass of whiskey.

“Maybe tomorrow,” Sam’s voice drifts through.

“Yeah, maybe,” Dean sighs and walks back into the control room. “What are you guys doing up so late anyway? Any leads?”

“No, we just lost track of time, I guess.” Sam yawns.

Dean frowns at Sam and turns to Kevin, who’s still engrossed in his research.

“I thought I told you to get his sick-ass to bed early?”

Sam pauses mid-stretch to give Dean a look. 

“And don’t roll your eyes at me, Sammy. It wasn't long ago you were on your death bed. Don’t think I've forgotten.”

“You’re kidding, right?” Kevin replies, looking up, and his bitch-face could rival Sam’s. “You try manhandling him into bed if he doesn't want to go! He’s got a good 100 pounds on me, in case you hadn't noticed.”

“And I’m better, now, really. I feel fine.” Sam interjects.

“Sure, but you’re not going to stay better if you keep overdoing it like this.”

“I get that, but there’s no reason why I can’t be of _some_ use.”

Dean is about to argue that Sam doesn’t need to be pushing the boundaries of sleep exhaustion to be useful but he stops. Because this isn’t about the missing angels. He knows Sam is still feeling responsible and guilty for not finishing the trials and shutting off hell and all that other messy stuff they haven’t spoken about since the night the angels fell. It loiters between them unspoken and Dean keeps trying to bring it back up again but there’s never been a good time and he isn’t sure how to begin or what to say that he hasn’t already said a hundred times.

“Fine, but don’t stay up much longer, okay? That goes for both of you!” Kevin and Sam both give him distracted nods from their stack of papers and books and Dean sighs as he heads off to bed, dimly confident that his words will go unheeded.

* * *

 

He sleeps soundly until he’s awoken by a rapid knocking on his bedroom door. He looks at the clock and sees 3:15am. Despite the hour he’s awake in an instant as panic flairs inside of him – it could be Kevin with bad news about Sam or it could be Sam with bad news about anything. He reaches for his gun and loads it with deft speed before yanking open the door, wearing just his sleeping t shirt and shorts.

It’s Sam. He’s got big dark circles under his eyes and he’s still wearing his rumpled clothes from yesterday. From the red mark on his cheek and the way his hair is sticking up Dean knows he must have fallen asleep at the table again. But Sam is grinning a big dopey tired grin and Dean wants to hope for good news but the spinning emotions are making him dizzy.

“What is it? What’s going on?”

“I wasn’t sure whether to wake you but I thought you’d want to know – guess who just turned up on the doorstep?”

Dean doesn’t need to guess - the answer is written plain as day on Sam’s face, but he’s only just sensing an undercurrent of worry in Sam’s smile.

“Is - is he okay?”

Sam nods slowly, a little too slowly. “He’s in one piece.”

“But?”

Sam nods for Dean to follow him as he heads back to the control area. Dean follows with a knot of worry growing in his stomach.

It all fades when he sees Cas sitting at the table. _Cas_. Dean hadn’t realised just how on edge he’s been about him until he feels the relief flooding through him in waves. Cas’s hair is disheveled and there are smudges of dirt on his cheek and mud caked into his torn trench coat but aside from that he’s definitely in one piece and he’s _here_. Cas is right here in the bunker and he’s not dead in a ditch somewhere or torn apart bloody in heaven. He’s _here_ and he’s _safe_. And even though Dean had known it since Sam appeared in his doorway a few minutes ago, it’s only now that he can see him with his own eyes that it feels real.

Kevin is sat at the table with him, looking on in fond amusement as Cas practically inhales the stack of sandwiches in front of him, and the relief Dean feels makes him grin along too.

“Dude, slow down, you’ll get indigestion!” He laughs but it’s only after he’s said it that his grin slips into concern as he understands _what it means_. He turns to Sam and suddenly the sad worry knitting his brother’s brow makes sense.

There’s a heartbeat of painful silence before Dean can bring himself to ask, “So Cas, you – you’re –“ the word sticks in his throat. Maybe if he doesn’t say it out loud it won’t be true.

Cas swallows the mouthful he’s been chewing but speaks with his eyes fixed on the next one he’s about to put in his mouth, his voice resigned and weary, “Yes, I’m human.”

They wait for more but it doesn’t come. Cas just keeps on eating as though he hasn’t eaten anything his entire life, which Dean realises is pretty much the case.

Dean thinks about asking further questions, about the angels, about where he’s been the past week, but he doesn’t want to push Cas too far, at least not tonight, not so soon. He can still hear the words _“I’m afraid I might kill myself”_ echoing in the back of his head, but Cas is here now, Dean reminds himself. He came back. He didn’t have to, but he came back. That means something, means everything.

Cas is already finishing his food when Dean catches Sam giving Kevin a very unsubtle look out of the corner of his eye. It takes Kevin a puzzled millisecond before he’s mouthing a silent “Oh” in response to Sam and giving a loud exaggerated yawn and stretch in Dean’s direction.

“Well, I’m exhausted.” Kevin says. “I guess I’ll see you guys in the morning.” Dean nods at him, watches as Kevin gives Cas a smile and a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder before leaving, but he frowns in confusion when he notices Cas’s barely concealed wince of pain.

“Yeah, I’m beat too.” Sam says, with a wide yawn. “I’ll leave you guys to – er – catch up. Goodnight Cas.”

Cas gives Sam a small smile. “Goodnight Sam. Thank you for the food and the hospitality. I’m sorry to have woken you.”

“Don’t mention it, really. I’m glad you’re back. And I meant what I said before, okay? You can stay as long as you want.”

Sam gives Cas a smile and then looks fondly back and forth between Dean and Cas before heading off to his room. Dean’ll be damned if he knows what that’s about but he chalks it up to Sam’s fatigue and possibly still-lingering fever.

It doesn’t take long for Dean to hear the distant sound of doors closing and he knows they’re alone.

He clears his throat. “Can I get you anything else to eat?” Cas’s plate is sparkling clean and Cas is staring at it like he’s hoping he can fabricate more food into existence with sheer will power alone. Maybe he could have done, once.

“No, I – I think I’m full.” Cas’s expression is puzzled as he gets to grips with the unfamiliar feeling.

In the brief silence that stretches, Dean again resists the urge to ask questions. It’s too late and they’re both tired. Cas’s eyelids are even drooping slightly and it’s strange to watch. He’s seen Cas asleep a few times over the years but it never fails to seem _wrong_ somehow. Angels don’t sleep. But Cas isn’t an angel anymore.

“Okay then. I’ll show you where the bedrooms are, because, no offense, but you look about as exhausted as I feel.” Dean gives a light laugh and Cas smiles but it’s tainted with something grim.

“It’s been a long week.” Is the only reply he gets for now.

* * *

 

The bunker has an endless supply of spare bedrooms and Dean leads Cas to one right next to the few they've already claimed. Like all the others, it's comfortable yet bland and basic in decoration but Cas gives Dean a grateful smile as he walks in. 

“Um, all the rooms down this hall have got their own bathrooms,” Dean says and points to a door in the room. “If you wanna jump in the shower I can go grab you some clean things for when you get out.”

“Thank you. I would appreciate that.” Cas shrugs off the trench coat slowly and Dean could almost believe it was simple reluctance to lose the coat that has become entwined with his identity but there’s that wince again, as though he’s experiencing excruciating pain.

“Hey, are – are you okay?”

Cas sighs, but doesn’t meet Dean's eyes. “As good as can be expected, given the circumstances.”

And the words spark memories of when Anna described her own fall akin to " _cutting your kidney out with a butter knife."_

Dean still doesn’t know the circumstances of how Cas fell or how the other angels fell or why Cas is here and seemingly powerless when all the others are fully-charged and AWOL, but one thing seems certain: it wasn't painless.

Dean is suddenly acutely aware that he’s lingering and that Cas is waiting for him to leave before stripping further. He can feel a flush in his cheeks as he stumbles out and heads to the laundry room to fetch clean clothes.

Cas is closer in height to Dean than to Sam or Kevin so Dean grabs a couple pairs of his own jeans and shorts before grabbing a couple plaid shirts of Sam’s and some tshirts that possibly belong to Kevin. Remembering the ripped state of the trench coat, he finds a black leather jacket going spare that looks about Cas’s size and adds it to the growing pile.

He stops by the weapons area and grabs a spare gun. He feels a moment of hesitation at giving Cas something so lethal, given his current mortal condition and questionable state of mind, but there’s no option. In this line of work, Cas will be in just as much danger if he wanders around unarmed.

Lastly, as an afterthought, he goes to the infirmary and digs around in the medicine cabinet for anything still in date. He finds an orange pill bottle with a small amount of strong pain medication and adds it to Cas’s pile, all the while trying to shake the odd shiver of déjà vu he feels as he does it.

When he gets back to the room Cas is already wrapped in a bathrobe post-shower, his messy dark hair damp and dripping onto his shoulders. He’s standing with his back to the door, flicking with only mild interest through a couple of dusty old books from the room’s small bookcase.

Dean clears his throat to make his presence known. Cas turns and his gaze drops to the bundle in Dean’s hands, which Dean promptly lays on the bed.

“We can get you your own things in the next couple of days but these should do temporarily.”

Dean picks up the gun and hands it to Cas with the handle facing him. “You know how to use one of these, right?”

Cas takes it reluctantly but nods, and he has no trouble at all demonstrating his ability at loading and unloading the bullets.

“There’s a shooting range down in the lower levels.” Dean continues. “I’ll show you around tomorrow and you can practice your shot.”

Cas nods again and puts the gun on safety before carefully laying it on the bedside table.

Dean picks up the pill bottle and hesitates a moment before passing it to Cas. “I’m not sure if these will help at all, with the pain, but it might be worth a try. Go easy on them though, just a couple at a time. They might take a while to kick in.”

There’s something about seeing Cas stare at the orange bottle that makes him feel sick to his stomach but he pushes the feeling down. It doesn’t mean anything, it doesn’t mean … _that_. It’s just medicine, that’s all. Nothing wrong with medicine. Cas places the bottle next to the gun on the night stand and turns to Dean.

“Thank you for this, for … everything. After all that’s happened, you didn’t have to. I could understand .. if you didn’t want to…”

“Cas, it’s no trouble, really. I’m just glad you’re okay.”

But Cas doesn’t seem to hear. “I don’t have to stay long and I can assist Sam and Kevin with their research and help with some chores –“

“Stop.” And Dean moves forward, raising his palms in gentle emphasis. “Look, you’re not just a guest here, okay? You’re family. And that means you’re allowed to pig out in the fridge whenever you want to and mooch around on the coach whenever you feel like it and eventually we can all start yelling at each other about doing the dishes. This isn’t a hotel – this is your home, for as long as you want it.”

Cas looks up at him and the depth of gratitude he sees there startles him.

“Anyway,” he says quickly. “I’ll leave you to – err –“ He gestures at the clean clothes on the bed. “And we’re just down the hall, if you need anything – anything at all.”

Cas’s smile is warm. “I’m sure I’ll be fine, but thank you.”

“Okay then. Goodnight, Cas. Sleep well.”

“Goodnight, Dean.”

He closes the door and walks back to his room. For once in his life he feels light and devoid of worry. No matter what the morning brings, at least for now, they're safe. 


End file.
